The Gaza Terror Offensive 22 – 28 September 2024

T. Belman. This article has a very clear summary of what has taken place. But beginning with WHAT NEXT?, it gets very interesting and informative.

By Dr. Eado Hecht, BESA  September 29, 2024

WHAT NEXT?

For now, Israel seems to be focused on an aerial bombing campaign to degrade Hezbollah. It is going for Hezbollah’s leadership hierarchy and arsenal of strategic artillery. The hope appears to be that Hezbollah, given the surge in its casualties in general (a few thousand within less than two weeks) and among its leadership in particular, as well as the destruction of much (though by no means all) of its strategic artillery arsenal, will be compelled to back down and agree to a ceasefire to save what can be saved.

If this does not succeed, the Israelis are indicating that they are prepared to conduct a ground offensive into Lebanon. They have reinforced their ground forces in the north and have been conducting numerous training exercises specifically for the Lebanese theater (and reporting them repeatedly in the media for psychological effect).

The question then arises: what would be the territorial objective of this offensive?

At a minimum, it would be to create a buffer zone empty of Hezbollah from the border to a certain distance northwards. How far north of the border? The Israeli leadership is not saying. The objective could also change as the offensive progresses: it could initially be to capture all areas from which one can see Israeli territory directly from Lebanon, then connect them into a line, and clear and hold the entire area between these points and the border (which would prevent the use of direct line-of-sight weapons into Israeli border villages). If deemed necessary, a decision might be made to then advance further north. Operating in a step-by-step mode like this is counter to most military best-practice theories, but could be necessary because of political considerations that limit Israel’s freedom of action.

A second requirement is that the distance emptied of Hezbollah should be sufficient to prevent a surprise attack into Israel (especially on the numerous Israeli villages adjacent to the border) by a major Hezbollah force appearing suddenly on the border without having been intercepted along the way. It should be remembered that the preparations made by Hamas in Gaza for October 7 were taught to it by Hezbollah, which has been openly preparing for just such an operation since 2010.

Beyond these minimum requirements, there are other possible objectives, including pushing back Hezbollah’s short-range arsenal to reduce the amount of fire it can pour into Israel. It is not possible to drive Hezbollah completely out of range since it has weapons with ranges of 100 to several hundred kilometers and can acquire weapons from Iran with a couple of thousand kilometer ranges such as those used by Iraqi Hezbollah and the Houthis. The farthest point from Israel’s border to Lebanon’s northernmost tip is about 200 kilometers.

On the other hand, it is quite clear that even if the IDF conducts raids in central and northern Lebanon (as it did in the Second Lebanon War in 2006), it will not try to conquer all of Lebanon, even temporarily.

Unless Hezbollah’s personnel suddenly lose their will to fight, this will not be an easy battle, but a lot depends on how far north the IDF attempts to advance. The further it goes, the more difficult the battle will be. It should be noted that so far, most of Hezbollah’s casualties have been in the strategic artillery and higher command echelons. Its southern ground forces have taken casualties, but not in large numbers relative to their overall size.

The terrain of southern Lebanon is characterized by steep sloping ridges, some narrower and some wider, separated by deep ravines. The population lives mostly atop these ridges, thus blocking virtually all natural travel routes. There are a couple of hundred built-up areas of varying size (small villages, large villages and towns). In many areas, buildings are scattered along the roads connecting separate villages, gradually joining them together into one contiguous built-up area. The population of southern Lebanon is mostly Shiite – that is, they are Hezbollah people.

Hezbollah has prepared almost every Shiite village in southern Lebanon (there are approximately 200 in total) to serve as a fortified area – digging shelters underneath houses to provide protection for men, equipment and munitions; preparing combat positions; and accumulating combat and logistic stores. Each village is manned by varying numbers of men, from 30 to 200, depending on its location and tactical importance. In and around these villages are scattered thousands of rocket launchers and tens of thousands of rockets.

To command these forces, Hezbollah divided southern Lebanon into three regional commands, each equivalent to an infantry division in size. Assuming the casualties inflicted on the senior command hierarchy and strategic artillery units do not cause the ground force personnel to give up, Hezbollah forces will fight to hold each village and deny passage through it. Defense of each village will be aggressive and mobile. Hezbollah forces will utilize underground shelters and positions, move from house to house, and counterattack whenever possible.

In addition, Israeli control of the air will make the transfer of troops from one fortified village to another in order to reinforce them a very slow, and possibly very expensive, process. Thus, the decision on how far north the IDF is to go will determine how many fortified villages it will have to capture and clear and how many Hezbollah troops it will have to contend with – a serious consideration for a casualty-sensitive nation.

The entire area outside the villages is also prepared for battle in these ways:

• Large areas are covered in mines (including some that are remote-controlled to explode in multiples at the push of a button) that can inflict casualties on Israeli units trying to bypass fortified villages.
• Hundreds of long-range and medium-range anti-tank missile launchers remain hidden. These include not only a full panoply of direct line-of-sight missiles (mainly Russian Kornet missiles with 5.5 kilometer, 8 kilometer and 10 kilometer ranges, but also shorter-range models) but also the al-Mass, which can be fired at targets that are hidden behind hills and have been located by surveillance drones.

Hezbollah has been studying the war in Ukraine and has acquired, in addition to the long-range exploding drones it has been using against Israel, large numbers of smaller shorter-range drones that can be used to reconnoiter an area and, if they detect targets, crash into them.

The war is not over, and we may yet see a great deal of fighting and Israeli casualties.

MEANWHILE – DOWN SOUTH…

There is not much new to report.

In Gaza the fighting continues as before. The Israelis are continuing to clear the Rafah area, preparing the so-called Philadelphi Corridor (which separates Gaza from Egypt) and the Netzarim Corridor (which separates northern Gaza from the rest of Gaza) for a lengthy sojourn. They are also continuing to conduct strikes, mostly from the air but also small ground raids, on detected Hamas locations. Hamas continues to identify all casualties as civilians, whereas the IDF reports the numbers of terrorists killed. Undoubtedly civilians are also suffering casualties, but not in the numbers provided by Hamas.

In Judea and Samaria, the escalated offensive seems to be having the desired effect. Each raid into the Palestinian areas is facing less opposition. Also, the Palestinian Authority has been compelled to take firmer action against the terrorists in its territory to reduce the number of Israeli operations and the damage they cause to infrastructure (especially the under-road and road-side bomb-clearing operations, which tear up the roads inside towns and villages and turn them into dirt tracks). The number of captured terrorists in these operations since the beginning of the war has risen to 5,250 (a few dozen more over the past week) with more than 2,050 from Hamas. The Palestinians have reported 10,900 detained in total. The discrepancy between their number and the Israeli number is that the former counts those detained for questioning and then released and while the latter only counts detainees who are subsequently held.

In the Red Sea, the Houthis claim to have attacked three American destroyers with 23 missiles and to have hit them. The American military denies this, saying that all the incoming missiles either missed or were intercepted with no damage done to American ships.

There are reports that Iran has asked Russia to supply more advanced anti-ship missiles to the Houthis. If true, this could – from the Russian standpoint – be a figurative “shot across the bow” warning the US not to allow deep strikes in Russia by Ukraine with advanced American weapons, an issue much discussed of late.

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